Obama Says He Doesn’t Foresee Sending Troops to Syria

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn’t
foresee circumstances that would require putting U.S. troops on
the ground in Syria, where rebels are trying to topple the
regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Obama said yesterday he wouldn’t completely rule out any
option. Still, he said that sending American forces into Syria
probably wouldn’t be in the U.S. interest, nor in Syria’s. Other
leaders in the Middle East “agree with that assessment,” he
said at a news conference with Costa Rican President Laura
Chinchilla in the capital of San Jose.

The administration has been debating ways to increase
pressure on Assad after disclosing last week that U.S.
intelligence agencies found “with varying degrees of
confidence” that small amounts of sarin nerve gas were used in
Syria. Obama and his national security advisers have resisted
calls to arm the opposition in Syria, in part because some of
the more effective militant factions have ties to al-Qaeda.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said May 2 that sending
lethal aid to rebel forces is one of the options under
consideration.

More than 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising
against Assad began in March 2011, according to United Nations
estimates. Most Americans reject the notion that the U.S. has a
responsibility to do something about the conflict, with 62
percent opposing intervention, according to a CBS News/New York
Times poll taken April 24-28.

Obama reiterated yesterday that the U.S. needs more
evidence before it acts. Any “systematic use” of chemical
weapons by the regime would be detected, he said.

“We will stay on this,” Obama said.

Airstrike Report

CNN, citing two unidentified U.S. officials, reported that
Israel conducted an airstrike on Syria either May 2 or
yesterday. It said 16 Israeli fighter jets entered Lebanese
airspace and that there’s no reason to believe that they were
targeting a chemical weapons storage facility inside Syria.

An unidentified U.S. official told the Associated Press
that the site targeted by Israel appeared to have been a
warehouse. Pentagon and White House officials declined yesterday
to comment on the CNN report.

Aaron Sagui, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in
Washington, wouldn’t confirm that an airstrike took place.

“We cannot comment on these reports, but what we can say
is that Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical
weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to
terrorists, specially to Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Sagui said.

Iran has pressed Hezbollah fighters to join the civil war
in Syria to bolster Assad’s armed struggle, according to Sobhi
al-Tofaili, a disaffected former leader of the Lebanese militant
group. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the
U.S. and Israel.